Visions Art News

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

The second edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, titled Whorled Explorations and curated by artist Jitish Kallat, is slated to open on December 12 at multiple venues in Kochi. The exhibition, featuring 95 artists from 30 countries, will be open to the public till March 29, 2015.

The first edition of the Biennale in 2012 was founded and curated by artists Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu. Whorled Explorations will be accompanied by ‘History Now’, a series of talks​​ and seminars conceived by the Kochi Biennale Foundation. In addition, there will be the Student’s Biennale, a pilot programme opening on December 13 engaging students from government-run art colleges across India, led by young curators selected from across the country. The programmes include performances, collateral events, interactive projects for children, as well as the Artist’s Cinema project.

Some of the key artists include Franceso Clemente, Anish Kapoor, Christian Waldvogel, K G Subramanyan, Sudhir Patwardhan, Ghulammohammed Sheikh and Namboodiri among others. The exhibition brings together art works that picture versions of the world with references to history, geography, astronomy, time and myth, interlacing the terrestrial with the celestial.

Explains curator and artist Kallat, “Two chronologically overlapping but unrelated historical episodes in Kerala during the 14th to 17th centuries became the focus of this exhibition. Drawing from them, allusions to the historical and the cosmological recur throughout the exhibition like exaggerated extensions to gestures we make, when we try to see or understand something.”

From the 15th century, the shores of Kochi were closely linked to the maritime chapter of the Age of Discovery — a tale of grit, greed and human ingenuity as a string of navigators arrived here after traversing large uncharted portions of the planet seeking spices and riches. The era heralded an age of exchange, conquest, coercive trading and colonialism, animating the early processes of globalisation. This drama of search, seduction and subjugation decisively altered the cartography of the planet. Within the shifting geography were sharp turns in history where we find, in an embryonic form, several of the themes we inherit in our world today. The 14th to 16th century was also the time when astronomer-mathematicians belonging to what came to be known as the Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics were making transformative propositions for understanding our planet and locating human existence within the wider cosmos.

Whorled Explorations is conceived as a temporary observation deck hoisted at Kochi. The exhibition draws upon a wide glossary of signs from this legendary maritime gateway to bring together sensory and conceptual propositions that map our world.

By Poonam Goel

(Poonam Goel is a freelance journalist who contributes articles on visual arts for unboxedwriters.com)

MUMBAI: Viewing art is commonly thought of as a stodgy affair, requiring hushed tones, hors d'oeuvres and deep pockets. But on the once-grimy bylane walls off 16th road in Bandra, there's art aplenty - one wall has a mesh of aquamarine tetrapods, another with a honeyed cat licking its paws above a fish pond, nearby a dystopian assembly line for mechanized teddy bears - for all and sundry to enjoy. These vivid murals are the result of the St+art India Foundation's almost month-long street art festival, which brings together 20 national and international artists to make art more egalitarian, by "taking art out of the galleries and onto the streets, while also giving the grey landscape of the city a much-needed facelift," said co-founder Arjun Bahl.

The roster includes Indian visual artists Ranjit Dahiya and Amitabh Kumar, German illustrator Dome, Chinese graffiti artist Ano and Polish abstract artist Seikon, who will adorn walls around Bandra and Versova. The artists were handpicked by co-founder and curator Giulia Ambrogi "for their ability to do site-specific work". This festival in collaboration with Celebrate Bandra will highlight subcultures associated with street art such as B-boying, and hosting cycle tours of the murals as well as graffiti workshops.

It is important to note the distinction between graffiti and the street art created during the festival, which seeks to ruffle no feathers having legal, family-friendly content despite having a few graffiti artists like the controversial Tyler in their collective. "One of our biggest agendas is to go to find spaces which are ignored and dirty, only to clean them up and create something beautiful. People then start taking care of those spaces because the artwork makes it worth saving," said Bahl. Living across a dreary wall that is now brightened by the tetrapod mural, Mrs. Bonnie D'Souza can attest to the power of street art to uplift the city and our spirit. "I am reminded of the ocean as a picture of Marine Drive comes into my mind's eye immediately. It's such a relief."

Monday, November 17, 2014

Crowd funding is not just the best way to get financial backing for new projects but also a way to find popularity amongst the public. So when the Kochi Muziris Biennale looked for a way to raise enough funds through the public to make India's biggest contemporary art event a success, it's no wonder that the organisers turned to online crowd funding.

Hosted on the crowd funding platform Catapoolt, and aiming to raise Rs. 15 crore in three months, the campaign is expected to bring universal attention to India's first Biennale.

"An event of this scale needs all the support it can get, but our campaign objective is not just to raise funds; we want to make it participatory, allow people to take ownership of it and feel proud of it," said Riyas Komu, the Secretary of the Kochi Muziris Biennale 2014, in a statement.

Thanks to the immense support it is already receiving from celebrities who are huge on social media platforms, like MP Shashi Tharoor and film maker Aashiq Abu, and is already catching the attention of quite a few people worldwide.

Social media platforms are already abuzz with the news and people from across the globe like Johanna Cronin of California and Howard Marks of Los Angeles are taking to Twitter to announce: "Crowd funding drive for Kochi Muziris Biennale launched #crowdfunding #tech #invest http://bit.ly/1y6ioXB".

Maya Allison, the founding director of the university gallery at NYU in Abu Dhabi applauded the "scrappy brilliance" of Biennale: "The 2nd edition of the only Indian biennial already has a rep for scrappy brilliance. It will use donations well..."

The second edition of Kochi Muziris Biennale, curated by Mumbai-based artist Jitish Kallat has a projected budget of Rs 26 crore, some of which will be met by government support and corporate sponsorship. Of the projected Rs 26-crore budget, a chunk would go towards shipment of artists' works from India and abroad.

"We request everyone to take this donation drive seriously. The Biennale makes a major cultural impact and brings valuable international focus to the region," said Komu, who co-curated the first Biennale in 2012.

This year, India's biggest contemporary art event will begin on 12 December 2014 and run for 108 days. It will feature the works of 94 artists from three countries around the globe. To donate to the crowd funding which has received only about .03% of the target at $ 747, go to the Kochi Muziris Biennale 2014 Catapoolt page.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Sandhini Poddar, adjunct curator at the Guggenheim Museum, has organized a retrospective on the Indian modernist painter V. S. Gaitonde, that opens Friday.Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times

When Sandhini Poddar first saw the paintings of V. S. Gaitonde, their silence spoke loudly. Displayed in a group show in 1997 at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai, the large abstract canvases, with layered colors and textures, invited long contemplation. “This was a feeling that wasn’t ephemeral, it stayed with me, and I could recall it whenever I wanted to go to a place of silence,” she said.Gaitonde, in his early 70s at the time, was living in a one-room rented apartment in New Delhi. Although fellow artists and knowledgeable collectors admired his work, he remained in the shadows, as he preferred. He had friends but never married. He gave few interviews. “He was a special kind of fellow,” said the New Delhi painter Krishen Khanna, a friend. “He didn’t doubt himself. He didn’t go around beating his drum. He was very quiet.”By the time Ms. Poddar, 38, adjunct curator at the Guggenheim Museum, was in a position to help raise awareness of Gaitonde’s achievement, the painter, whom she never met, was no longer available to assist her. He died in 2001. Exploring the residual traces of his life, she discovered that he left remarkably little trail. There were no heirs. No one had inventoried his output. In a long career, he produced relatively few paintings. “There’s always been a kind of mystery surrounding the artist,” Ms. Poddar said. “He’s almost abstract as a person in that way.” As she researched his self-effacing craft, in preparation for a retrospective that will open on Friday at the Guggenheim, the mysteries of Gaitonde only deepened. His obscurity, however, ended with a dramatic flourish

Indian modernist painter V. S. Gaitonde.Credit Shalini Saran

Last December in Mumbai, as part of Christie’s first auction in India, a painting by Gaitonde sold for $3.8 million, the highest price ever for a work of modern Indian art. The auction signaled the arrival not only of this singular painter, but also of an entire generation of postwar Indian artists. Almost every work in the sale of Indian modern art fetched a price that was triple its low estimate, said Deepanjana Klein, the Christie’s vice president for South Asian modern and contemporary art.
For Gaitonde, it helped that the Guggenheim show was on the horizon. Hugo Weihe, then Christie’s international director of Asian art, told his listeners that the painting they were bidding on might well be displayed in a major New York museum the following year. In the audience was Sandhini Poddar’s mother, Rashmi, an art historian and philosopher of aesthetics. (The Poddars, who are part of the prominent Marwari business clan, had consigned work by another artist.

“What have you done?” she texted Sandhini, who was in London, as the gavel descended on the record-setting amount. Her daughter wrote back, “This is nuts.”

A untitled 1979 painting that sold for $3.8 million at auction last year.Credit Lee Ewing

The sale price was certainly startling, but as mother and daughter knew, it could be explained. The growth of the Indian economy over the last two decades has swelled the fortunes of the Indian business class, and with it has come an increased interest in India’s art. The trade in Indian antiquities is tightly restricted; its most fervent collectors are outside the country, in the United States and Europe. Modern Indian art awaited discovery.

The leading Indian modernist painters belonged to the Progressive Artists Group, a loose clique of painters that formed in 1947 in Bombay (as Mumbai was then called). They borrowed the techniques and formal devices of avant-garde Western painting. However, as has happened over the ages, the imported aesthetic would change as it was synthesized in India.

Gaitonde was raised in Bombay and lived there until his move to New Delhi in 1972. In 1950, he joined the Progressive Artists, painting pictures that were heavily influenced by Paul Klee. “Klee was a great god here,” said Mr. Khanna, who affiliated himself with the Progressive Artists. “Everyone felt he had opened a whole new book in painting.”

Gaitonde, who developed a deep interest in the teachings of Zen Buddhism, gradually eliminated all figurative representation from his work. He used a roller to build up thin washes of color in translucent complexity, and a palette knife to create contrasting patches of thick impasto. In 1964, he moved for a year to New York, where he could view actual paintings by Western artists instead of reproductions.

Mr. Khanna went with him to visit Mark Rothko. “We saw Mark doing his big paintings, the black ones,” Mr. Khanna recalled. “We were both suitably impressed — Gaitonde greatly impressed.” Although Gaitonde’s paintings don’t resemble Rothko’s formally, they inspire a similar meditative mood. “When you concentrate on the painting, you are sucked into the painting,” Mr. Khanna said.

In his later years, Gaitonde would apply cutout strips to his canvas and apply his roller over them until they hovered as ghostly forms. He created only a half-dozen or so paintings in a year. Although he could be adamant about his pricing — Mr. Khanna remembered once seeing the director of the National Gallery of Modern Art approach Gaitonde to suggest a discount, then walk away quickly in obvious defeat — he showed no interest in material possessions or commercial success. “After the work was taken away, he didn’t have any relationship with it,” Sandhini Poddar said. “He went on to the next idea.”

An untitled ink on paper from 1987.Credit Anil Rane/Collection of Ram Kumar

His dedication to his art and self-imposed absence from the persiflage of casual daily life obviously appeal to Ms. Poddar. “She lives in a world of abstraction, almost,” her mother said. “It’s not just the notion of silence, but the experience of silence.” In 2008, Sandhini spent 10 days in a silent retreat at a Buddhist monastery in Massachusetts. On her return, she shaved off all of her long hair. “She wanted to experience detachment,” Rashmi Poddar said. “One of the things she was attached to was her hair as a sign of beauty. So she cut it off. ” It has since grown back.

Sandhini gravitated to the orbit of Rashmi and other art lovers in the family. (A cousin by marriage owns two drawings and a painting in the Guggenheim show.) “When other kids were doing cartwheels, I was at the Louvre,” she said. She melded a passion for modern Western art with a devotion to traditional India. Earning postgraduate degrees in ancient Indian culture and Indian aesthetics from the University of Mumbai, she added a master’s in arts administration at New York University.

Coming late to art history, she draws on her interdisciplinary studies as a source of insight. Referring to the rich reds and yellows in Gaitonde’s palette and to his calligraphic forms, she said: “What aspect of the miniature painting tradition is Gaitonde taking? What part of the Zen tradition?” In her view, medieval Indian art and Eastern philosophy are as relevant as the Progressive Artists Group to an understanding of Gaitonde’s accomplishment.

An untitled painting from 1955.Credit Florian Biber/Chowdhury Family Collection, Vienna-Mumbai

Before taking on Gaitonde for the Guggenheim, Ms. Poddar oversaw exhibitions there on two Indian expatriates: the sculptor Anish Kapoor and (in a show organized by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles) the printmaker Zarina. With an eye to enlarging its global profile, the Guggenheim is devoting more space to artists from outside the United States and Western Europe. More controversially, as part of its worldwide mission it is establishing a branch in Abu Dhabi. Like New York University, which built a campus there, the Guggenheim has faced criticism over the conditions for construction workers.

Acquiring art from the Subcontinent that will be displayed in Abu Dhabi, Ms. Poddar is aware that people from the region constitute by far the largest demographic group, but they are there mainly as temporary workers and may never enjoy the museum’s offerings. “You have a public to serve, but it is not a museum-going public,” she said. “It is not just enough to put the collection together. Abu Dhabi is so young. At the end of the day, the question is the same: Who are you serving, and how are you going to serve them?”

Positioning Indian artists within the overall narrative of modern art is another delicate challenge. In recent decades, many Latin American artists of the mid-20th century have been recognized as central to art history. Will any Indian artists attain comparable status? Rashmi Poddar, for one, is skeptical. “Much of it is derivative,” she said. “In Indian art, we’ve always had this love of embellishment and the decorative. Indian art has never been abstract.” Christie’s Ms. Klein, on the other hand, maintains that as more museums explore modern and contemporary Indian art — she noted exhibitions in Philadelphia, Chicago and San Diego — the scholarship will deepen, winning wider acclaim for artists. It is not only the scholarship that has a way to go. Within India, the conditions for displaying art are still so undeveloped that Sandhini Poddar was unable to find a financially stable museum that could accept the Gaitonde show.

Ms. Poddar lives in England, where she is engaged to marry William Sargent, the co-founder and C.E.O. of a company that creates special effects for movies, “Gravity” among them. She is also planning to return to school to get a Ph.D. She seemed confident about Gaitonde’s stature as a world-class painter, but when the topic turned to India’s place in the history of modern art, she became a bit less certain. Asked who stood on the same rung as Gaitonde, she hesitated. “I think he is rather exceptional,” she said.

The answer on India’s role in modern art is pending; happily, the scholarship that can settle the question has begun.

Some 60 jeweled objects from the private collection formed by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Thani are on display in the exhibition. It provides a glimpse into the evolving styles of the jeweled arts in India from the Mughal period until the early 20th century, with emphasis on later exchanges with the West.

The exhibition, sponsored by Cartier, include historical works from the Mughal period in the 17th century and from various courts and centers of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Hyderabad; a group of late 19th- and 20th-century jewels made for India’s Maharajas by Cartier and other Western firms; and contemporary commissions inspired by traditional Indian forms.

On view are also several antique gems that were incorporated into modern settings by Maison Cartier, jewelry designer Paul Iribe, and others. Contextual information is provided through historical photographs and portraits of Indian royalty wearing works similar to those on view.

Among the Mughal works are an elegant jade dagger originally owned by two emperors—the hilt was made for Jahangir and it was re-bladed for his son Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal. In the 19th century, the dagger was in the collection Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the Morse code. The hilt features a miniature sculpture—a European-style head.

Historically, the gem form favored throughout India has been the cabochon. In the traditional kundan technique, a gem is set within a bed of gold, and often backed in foil to enhance its color. Another highlight of the exhibition will be a gem-set tiger head finial originally from the throne of Tipu Sultan (1750–1799), which incorporated numerous cabochon diamonds, rubies, and emeralds in a kundan setting.

Also on view will be several examples of North Indian sarpesh and jigha (turban ornaments) from 1875–1900, brought together in a display that traces their evolution from traditional plume-inspired forms and techniques toward more Western shapes and construction. Silver foil backing was used; however, the diamonds were set using a Western-style claw or coronet, rather than the kundan setting.

And a work designed by the artist Paul Iribe and made by goldsmith Robert Linzeler in 1910 in Paris recalls the kind of aigrette (decorative pin) that would have ornamented the turban of a Maharaja or Nizam. At the center is a large emerald, carved in India between 1850 and 1900.

Ragamala – Picturing Sound: Visitors, who did not catch the exhibition Ragamala, have an opportunity to do, through December 14th of this year at the museum.

A ragamala, translated from Sanskrit as “garland of ragas,” is a series of paintings depicting a range of musical melodies known as ragas. Its root word, raga, means color, mood, and delight, and the depiction of these moods was a favored subject in later Indian court paintings. The celebration of music in painting is a distinctly Indian preoccupation.

Ragamalas were first identified as a specific painting genre in the second half of the fifteenth century, but their ancestry can be traced to the fifth- to seventh-century Brihaddeshi treatise, which states: “A raga is called by the learned that kind of composition which is adorned with musical notes . . . which have the effect of coloring the hearts of men.” Often, the mood, or raga, is also written as poetry on the margins of the painting. These works evocatively express the intersections of painting, poetry, and music in Indian court art.

The unifying subject of a ragamala is love, which is evoked as a range of specific emotions (rasa) that have a corresponding musical form. In paintings these are typically the trials and passions of lovers, which are explored in both sound (raga) and analogous imagery, with a raga generally understood to denote the male protagonist and a ragini the female. These musical modes are also linked to six seasons—summer, monsoon, autumn, early winter, winter, and spring—and times of the day, dawn, dusk, night, and so on.

Created as loose leaf folios, typically thirty-six or forty-two in number, which were stored in a portfolio, ragamala circulated within the inner court circles that commissioned them. Viewing these paintings was a pleasurable pastime for courtiers, their guests, and the ladies of the zenana. These ragamalas were also painted as murals in the private quarters of palaces, though few of these have survived.

The exhibition features Indian paintings and musical instruments from the museum’s collection.

The event, organized by Art Malaysia Association and supported the country's Ministry of Tourism and Culture and orther organizations, will see the participation of artists from Malaysia and 37 other countries.

The biennale, which is on the theme of migration, is expected to bring art enthusiasts from around the world to Langkawi island.

The event will take place along Pantai Cenang, a picturesque two km beach with long stretches of white sand.

Mehta completed his B.A. (Fine) in Applied Arts from the M.S. University of Baroda here and has been active as a sculptor, painter and photographer and has exhibited in shows around the country. Most recently, he had exhibited at the International Art Group show "Across the Ocean" at the Birla Art Academy in Kolkata.

Basu is an artist and a freelance writer and has participated in more than 100 international and national shows and held some 40 solo exhibitions.

Ray has a BA degree in Bengali and is an artist and a writer. Apart from publishing several books, she has held solo exhibitions of her works and participated in group shows.

Ashok Kumar has a degree in Fine Arts from the College of Arts, Patna and then studied painting at the L’Ecole Superieure Des Beaux­Arts de Marseille, France.

Some of the group exhibitions that he has participating in include the Sixth Biennial of Contemporary Indian Arts, (Bhopal), International Biennale Art Exhibition at Dallas (USA), contemporary art exhibition created by the artists residence ‘Crossings’ by Frac Reunion at MOCA, Saint Dennis (Reunion Island) and international art exhibition by SODEFA (Chandigarh).

Das has an M.A. in Fine Arts in Printmaking from Viswa Bharati Universty and has worked as an Indian National Scholar. She has been teaching art at primary and secondary Levels at a private school in Kolkata, Lakshmipat Singhania Academy, since 1996. She has held more than 25 solo exhibitions and participated in an equal number of group exhibitions.

SummaryChristie’s first auction in Mumbai in 2013 was a phenomenal success, establishing the highest price for a work of art ever sold in India.

﻿﻿

Jehangir Sabavala’s The Green Cape, oil on canvas, painted in 1974, is likely to fetch between R1.2 crore and R1.8 crore.

Jehangir Sabavala’s The Green Cape, oil on canvas, painted in 1974, is likely to fetch between R1.2 crore and R1.8 crore.

When London-based auction house Christie’s holds its second auction in Mumbai on December 11, it will be capitalising on a market that it shook up last year. Christie’s first auction in Mumbai in 2013 was a phenomenal success, establishing the highest price for a work of art ever sold in India, and the total sale of R96,59,37,500 was double the pre-sale expectations.

Some recent successful sales by Indian auction houses have just reinforced the fact that good art will attract buyers and better prices. For instance, an auction by Delhi-based Saffronart last month sold 83 artworks for over R38 crore in one evening, apart from a Jehangir Sabavala painting for R3 crore.

An online auction of modern and contemporary art by Indian artists, including MF Husain, SH Raza and Anjolie Ela Menon, raised R20 crore last month. In the auction conducted by AstaGuru.com, Raza’s work, titled Bhoomi, sold for R5.3 crore.

However, are high values for Indian art and successful sales here to stay?

Christie's international director of Asian art Amin Jaffer certainly thinks so. Positive about this year's auction too, he says early indications are for strong results once again. In an email response to FE, he promises Christie's will have a good selection, particularly of works by modern masters. Giving details, he says the auction house already has a sublime landscape by Sabavala from 1974, The Green Cape, with a pre-sale estimate of R1.2-1.8 crore and a rare Tyeb Mehta portrait. Other artists include Bhupen Khakhar, Subodh Gupta, Rashid Rana, Mithu Sen, Bharti Kher, Nilima Sheikh and Thukral & Tagra.

Seeing last year's response, Christie's has decided to make the sale an annual affair in India. As Jaffer says, “We are committed to the Indian market for the long term. We have had a presence in India for 20 years but feel the time is right to make our auctions part of the art calendar, alongside other initiatives that will ensure a vibrant and sustainable future for the art market in India.”

Kishore Singh, head, publications & exhibitions, Delhi Art Gallery, says everyone is waiting and watching for Christie's second auction that will truly define the market for Indian art. “The first auction was a superb collection of artworks and had the entire might of Christie's behind it. Let's see if the second auction matches it in terms of quality and value.” He terms the first auction an 'aberration', saying only sustained success will help the Indian market, especially unestablished artists. He also points out that no phenomenal sales of Indian art happened globally immediately after the auction in India. However, with recent successful auctions, he predicts the value of Indian art to go up to R100 crore by end of the decade. If that's not success, what is?